


When Heaven and Hell fell...

by IsilmeLasgalen



Series: The story isn't over and it is not the end. [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, Jack Kline is a Winchester, M/M, POV Gabriel, POV Outsider, Protective Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 16:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21121745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsilmeLasgalen/pseuds/IsilmeLasgalen
Summary: It wasn't until Gabriel saw Castiel lose the last sliver of his faith that he realised what the end of an era felt like.





	When Heaven and Hell fell...

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Supernatural.
> 
> // marks dialogue

For years all Gabriel had felt was pain. Torture. His mind and body and soul breaking. He gave trying to escape. Had resigned to that state of existence. Because it was not life. It wasn't even surviving. It was existing. Just that... And then someone broke him out and bought him to the Winchesters, it was always the Winchesters. But he woke up in a world he couldn't recognise, he might as well have been gone for a thousand years.

It wasn't until Gabriel saw Castiel lose the last sliver of his faith that he realised what the end of an era felt like.

Gabriel wasn't brave. He wasn't strong, not really. He was powerful, it was how he'd been made, but he wasn't strong. Some would even argue that he was a coward... and he would deny it... out loud, but deep inside a part of him screamed it was true. Was he not the one that ran away? Lucifer, for all his faults had at least fought. Maybe for the wrong reasons, maybe with the wrong methods, but he had fought. He stood up for what he believed in. He stood up to their siblings. He stood up to their father. Gabriel could at least admire that. Raphael and Michael fought too, in their own twisted way. But Gabriel? He had ran. Ran from heaven, ran from the end of the world... Ran from the one brother he loved more than anything.

He remembered when Castiel had been created. The tiny flicker of light had been so beautiful. And then their father was gone. Something about the little angel just wouldn't let Gabriel abandon him to fend for himself. In retrospect maybe their relationship only made it harder for little Cas after he left. He pulled through though, Gabriel had always known he was meant for greater things.

From the day he was born Castiel had been different. He had followed orders, sure. Had faith in a way most didn't understand and they mocked it but Gabriel loved that most about him. Castiel had a mind of his own and he was not afraid to use it. He wondered how many times that mind got him into trouble after he left. How many times he had been punished only to get up and do it again because Castiel was not a quitter. He knew God was not perfect, but he had faith in their father. Gabriel knew from experience that it was not an easy thing to believe in and wished he had had the forethought to at least tell the little one God had left them before abandoning him too. Maybe things would have been different if he knew from the start where the orders were coming from... Well, it didn't matter anymore, Castiel was all grown up. He had a little angel of his own to protect. In the time Gabriel had been gone, in the years he could not watch over him anymore, Cas made a family of his own.

Little Cas was not little Cas anymore. He was a Seraph for one, stronger than any angel, Gabriel suspected, other than the archangels. He was mortal, for another. Still angel, but wingless, aging. Had been fallen for a long time. He had died. He had suffered. But more than that, he had lived. Sometimes that Gabriel and Lucifer and Michael had failed to do. He made a life for himself, a real life. He had a little baby boy he loved more than life. A beautiful relationship with a beautiful man that would move heaven and hell for him. Did it already, if the stories Gabriel had been told were true. Castiel had seen all the cracks in creation, all the flaws, and he still loved it. Had met their father with all his faults and still trusted him. Didn't pray to him anymore, didn't follow him anymore, but loved him nonetheless. Still had faith left where Gabriel had lost his long ago.

He couldn't stay and watch so he ran again. Running was his true talent. Killing not so much. Looking at Sam when the brothers rescued him all he could see was the life he could have had if he had just a little bit of courage. The one he threw away when he left, like he always did.

Life back at the bunker had been surreal after that. Coming to terms with all that had happened. Castiel being wary of him and his promise to help. Dean glaring daggers waiting for him to betray them and run. Mary, who he learned was mama Winchester, was like a balm to every wound but not even her presence could fix everything. Sam trying to talk when Gabriel could barely look at him without breaking down and begging for just one more chance was one thing she could make better. And then there was Jack.

Jack was a little miracle. So tiny and so bright. He looked so much like his parents. Well, so muck like Dean and Castiel. He knew that technically Jack's parents were Lucifer and a woman named Kelly that died when Jack was born. According to Castiel she had been kind and gentle enough to make up for even Lucifer's most gruesome traits. It didn't matter though, even his grace reminded Gabriel of little Cas wandering Heaven all young and naive. It was very clear who his parents were, not that he knew how they fell into the role together.

Sam told him Dean and Castiel had been a long time coming though he was giving up on them before Jack was born. He was still not sure what happened but when Castiel died Dean had prayed. Prayed and screamed and pleaded to anyone that would listen. He broke. For days he might as well had been dead too, taking care of Jack on autopilot becase Castiel had promised Kelly he would raise the boy and Cas was gone before said angel called them after a case one day nearly a month later. A case during which Dean had nearly killed himself, telling them that he woke up in the dark hearing Dean call for him and annoyed an "ancient cosmic being" into bringing him back to life just to get rid of him. That sounded like little Cas alright. He moved into Dean and Jack's room that day and that was that.

Things were starting to look well, until they completely fell apart, that is. Lucifer showed up alive and well from what he was told was an apocalyptic world Mary had literally slapped him into. He bought with him a bunch of human survivors and a lot of angelic grace. A lot. His father was coming for Jack, he said, he was not letting him kill his son. Lucifer was an evil son of a bitch but even he it seemed was a better father than their own, and wasn't that saying something? 

He expected his brother to throw a fit about Dean and Castiel raising Jack but he said nothing. To Gabriel it didn't look like he thought he would survive the confrontation with their father. 

Plannin for battle was something else. There were no good ideas when it came to fighting God and as if that was not enough Heaven and Hell were falling apart. The angels were down to a handful and even an archangel could only keep the lights going for so long at that point. Hell fell into chaos with Asmodeus, the last of the higher demons, gone. With Hell unraveling, so was Purgatory.

Fixing them turned out not to be an option, no matter their power or numbers, gods they were not. They made a deal with Death and the Shadow, though, so the souls there and any that would die after could join angels and demons into the void. In exchange of the souls it would get, the Shadow would help them make a cage from the ruins of the three dimensions, strong enough to contain gods. Then they set the trap and waited. They didn't have to wait long.

Lucifer used the grace he stole to try to cast a spell supposed to trap their father in the cage. It was the last straw for their dear dad though, because Lucifer was burning before he was even half way through. Gabriel was easily defeated, at full power he could have barely stood a chance, weakened he didn't even get a glance. Mary was close to him, holding Jack and terrified. Their allies, some of them having come with Lucifer from the other dimension, were fallen around them. There was a blonde girl, Claire, still trying to get up, screaming at the top of her lungs that he would get her little brother over her cold dead body. The daughter of Castiel's vessel then. Not that any of them were deemed worth killing. They were too weak even for that.

Dean and Sam lasted longer, through whatever magic their souls were made of. They were human but after dying so many times, being possessed, changing into something else, traveling to so many dimensions, literally going to Hell and back, they were bound to change. And they had, he could see it on their souls.

It was Castiel though that was putting on the real fight. When their father showed up, Castiel had tried talking to him. Begging him to give Jack a chance. To give his son a chance. He didn't. Not because Jack was evil, or because he was out of control. It was because God was afraid that someone could one day be more powerful than him. Could one day defy him, defeat him. So he sought to destroy Jack before he had a chance to even consider any of that. As he had with every Nephilim before him.

Gabriel saw it in Castiel's eyes. The exact moment when he lost all faith. The moment he decided that he would rather die than stand down... And he was dying. His body was failing, his soul was breaking apart at the seams. They were losing, and Gabriel knew, he knew, that if they did that was it. His father was not going to stop after them. He was going to rip Castiel to shreds until nothing was left even of his soul and his brother was not backing down. Gabriel had always known Castiel was brave. Fearless even. Willing to fight any battle, face any enemy. It was how he became a commander. It was why he went to Hell to rescue one human regardless of the state it left him in. He defied his people. He fell. He went to war, a war he could not win, for the people he loved. He died and came back and was not afraid to die again. His little brother was going to die before he let their father get to Jack and Gabriel was going to have to watch. He was going to fail him again!

Heaven and Hell were gone. All that was left of angels and demons were the handful of each roaming the Earth. And the last angel who truly loved god, his father, had given up on him. Castiel was the most loyal person Gabriel had even met and even he had given up. There was no faith in him anymore. Gabriel had been a coward all his life... but he could not watch his baby brother die and do nothing. So he crawled to Lucifer's body, the marks of his burned wings had barely missed the runes. Drawn in grace and blood of an archangel. He took the bowl from where it fell and started doing the rest. 

/You are doing well, little angel./

/Amara./

He hadn't seen her since she got trapped in the mark of Cain. He knew the story though. Fell in love with a Winchester, never was the same again.

/I am not here to fight you. I am here to help you./

/Because of Dean./

/Cast the spell, I will drag him down there./

Her human body was pretty, her smile gentle. He wished she was more like that when he knew her.

/You will be stuck in there./

/I am not afraid of the dark, Gabriel. I am the dark./

It was hazy, casting the spell. Painful. It fed on his life force and he realised why Lucifer had been sure he would not survive that battle. There were hands on him after. Rough and warm. He opened his blurry eyes and could barely see Sam screaming at him.

/... St- ke! ... G-riel! ... Gabriel! Stay awake!/

/Sam.../

/He's gone, Gabriel. We won!/

He was so happy, the big idiot. Probably didn't have a chance yet to realise they have also lost a lot.

/Where is Castiel?/

/He's not well.../

/Take me to him./

/Gabriel.../

He took a big hand in his and squeezed, his own hand was trembling.

/I am dying, Sammy. This is it, the end of my story. It doesn't have to be the end of his./

Castiel was leaning against a tree, how it was still standing up Gabriel had no idea. Jack was quiet in his arms, eyes wide on his father as Castiel tried and failed to bounce on his knee. Dean was by their side, laying down, face buried in Castiel's thigh. They were startled when Sam helped Gabriel kneel by them.

/You cast the spell. Thank you./

/I am not running anymore./

He pulled Castiel close, laying their foreheads together. Jack giggled between them, clapping his tiny hands. He pushed his grace out willingly, letting it flow into Castiel, willing it to heal, to change, to evolve. He saw the light flash in his little brother's eyes, felt his soul mend, strengthen. He might have had little grace left but it did it's job and it would replenish.

/What did you do?!/

/It's a gift... You've... grown. I am... proud of you./

There was so much more he wished he could say, as he felt his body fall back into Sam. So much he wished he could still do. He never got the chance...

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched season 13 and just had to write this. It was on my mind, wouldn't let me rest. I know a little of what happens in seasons 14 and 15 though.
> 
> Obviously some things are different than canon: Jack is a baby, the only one trapped in apocalypse world was Lucifer, that Michael never came to Earth. Heaven, Hell and purgatory are all gone and the Empty gets all the souls so I think it will leave our favourite hunters alone from now on. God lost, because frankly this Chuck guy is starting to piss me off, seriously. This season made me love Cas and Destiel a lot. I wasn't even a Destiel fan before, but I am now. Maybe I just missed the show, I haven't watched it in two years. Gabriel made Castiel an archangel at the end, just in case I haven't made that clear.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.


End file.
